On top of being the top melee dps spec currently, Fury Warriors bring utility in Skull Banner, Demo Banner, and Rallying Cry.

AFAIK most of the windwalker buffs have been reverted, as they are currently pretty high up there anyway. If they're still at the ridiculous levels they were at the start of PTR, expect them to be heavily nerfed during the next tier. Blizzard can't have anyone beating mages.

Yes, with the latest ptr build (they're labeled as mistweaver, but they're bugged, look at the description of the stance, it's windwalker) it jumped to around 40% (200% blackout kicks). As a WW, I honestly believe they won't make it to live, but 30% is a safe bet, AND we're gonna have the best cleave in the game (range 100yd). Not to mention a powerful self heal is in our rotation (expel harm doing same dmg as jab) and we're very survivable with 1.5 minute cd's and a cool raid cd.

Don't discount the power of Enhancement! When I eat my wheaties and am not half asleep (morning guild), I burst some times over 200k and usually sustain around 100 depending on the fight. Yeah AoE and Cleave isn't amazing on an Enhance but single target they are ruthless. Plus take into account our raid utility:

Aye, 5.2 is going to be ruled by Windwalker unless Blizzard comes to its senses. They are top tier in pretty much every way imaginable - Single Target, AoE, Cleave, Survivability, and mobility are all as good or way better than what other melee have.

On top of being the top melee dps spec currently, Fury Warriors bring utility in Skull Banner, Demo Banner, and Rallying Cry.

AFAIK most of the windwalker buffs have been reverted, as they are currently pretty high up there anyway. If they're still at the ridiculous levels they were at the start of PTR, expect them to be heavily nerfed during the next tier. Blizzard can't have anyone beating mages.

the only thing that's been nerfed is TEB went from 2 chi per stack to 3, which is still one less than it is now, and with the mastery changes, a whole hell of a lot better, with added scale factors for increased gear levels.

I imagine most of these changes as well as Ring of Peace will go live, and get nerfed later. But currently on the ptr, after having done 100m damage to the dummy, I average at about 110kish maybe a little more. On live, its around 80-90k. And that's pure single target and unbuffed, if I throw a SEF up on one of the others, it goes up a considerable amount.

Like I mentioned in a previous post. Windwalkers look great on sims. But those sims are hardly accurate even for a patchwerk fight. Throw movement/any downtime in there and the number falls significantly. We have no dots or passive damage to carry our dps in the event we have to move or run out to a different target.

Windwalkers will probably top the sims in 5.2 but if you compare the current sims, to spec score on raidbots.com you will see what i am talking about.

Disregarding the buffs brought by various classes, I'd definitely lean toward a fury warrior or frost DK currently, they are both strong at the moment, with a fury warrior in particular bringing a lot of utility in addition to their strong damage (as shown in the above post).

Enhance, as mentioned, brings strong burst and single target in general, with average cleave (but strong aoe in the right situations - sustained with 3-4+ targets). As far as an offhealing melee goes, enhance is definitely the best with AG and the general heals provided with maelstrom weapon + glyph - a well played enhance is a lot of help to any raid. Stormlash of course is a great raid dps bonus

tl;dr consider what your raid needs from a buff standpoint, and then what you want your raid to have as far as utility. Someetimes the highest dps class isn't necessarily the best fit as far as synergy goes for a 10man group

I can only speak from a rogue and warrior perspective (mained a rogue pre mop and war now)

Both are solid dps classes with fury war being a bit nore gear dependent. Rogues have a lower min max learning curve than warriors but as a result is less rewarding in terms of execution. From a personal playstyle perspective I prefer war over rogues.

But as mentioned take into consideration what buffs are needed in your group, what gear is more abundant ( plate vs leather, weapons, tokens), and what utilities your group needs.

Rogues are great at bypassing a lot of the one shot mechanics you see in heroic content (feint, cloak, cheat death) while warriors excel at raid utilities (banners, rallying cry)

Also remember as a warrior you will always have the option of an offspec.

---------- Post added 2013-01-24 at 09:37 PM ----------

Also don't forget the buffs they're giving rogues. Prep baselined and smoke bomb being a raid utility. If it wasn't bc I prefer fury's play style I would go rogue.

they're all good. if you pick something you like the playstyle of, and enjoy, you're going to get more out of it than playing something 'OP'. and you'll easily overcome any little 5% dps differences on paper.

Don't discount the power of Enhancement! When I eat my wheaties and am not half asleep (morning guild), I burst some times over 200k and usually sustain around 100 depending on the fight. Yeah AoE and Cleave isn't amazing on an Enhance but single target they are ruthless. Plus take into account our raid utility:

Nice to see, that not a single one of you ever mentioned a Ret and Blizz still claims they're right at the spott where they want them to be.
Sometimes I rly hate to be Ret.

My raid leader is Ret and using two hand of sacrifices on tanks in right times, saving people with HoP (and things like arrow pinned on spirit kings) and saving people with LoH, nobody minds that he's doing only 95k dps.

My raid leader is Ret and using two hand of sacrifices on tanks in right times, saving people with HoP (and things like arrow pinned on spirit kings) and saving people with LoH, nobody minds that he's doing only 95k dps.

Still nothing that a holy paladin can't do, to get a better dps instead of the retri.
Thats the problem with the specc. We dont have any spec specific utility.